Footnote to the preceding

I say this here because it didn't fit comfortably into the previous post but I wanted to say it.

I find the difference in treatment between the bailout of the banks and the proposed loans to the auto industry to be morally offensive.

In the one case we have hundreds of billions almost literally thrown at a problem with no oversight, no conditions, no performance requirements. Even after the original plan is ditched for a wholly different one, one that at first was labeled a bad idea, even after it became known that bailout money was being used for plush executive getaways and for acquisitions rather than for loosening credit, even after some members of Congress say that the way things have turned out is not what they voted for, still no one in any position of authority, not even those members of Congress, have indicated any desire to do a damn thing about it.

In the other case, involving a fraction of the money, we have demands for detailed plans and precise accountability and management and labor alike are lectured on their need to improve their performance.

I don't know if that difference is rooted in a feeling in Congress that they were incompetent to judge the financial issues in the bank bailout, that they just didn't understand it, while they do feel competent to judge the auto industry and the UAW - or if it arose from a need for macho posturing after they got rolled on the bank bailout - or if it arose from classism, from the fact that, as someone, I forget who now but it may have been the UAW's Gettelfinger, said, the one involved people who shower before they go to work and the other involves people who shower when they get home from work.

I don't know. I do know that whatever the cause, I find the difference morally offensive.